Various posts and personal logs from the Japanese countryside in the shadow of Mt. Fuji.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

On the ropes. I almost had the towel thrown in on me.

Yesterday during the first prep period at work I decided to send an email to my scheduler at Interac. I sent the email and told her about all my symptoms and especially my horrible insomnia I have been experiencing. By about lunch time I was feeling pretty crappy, just about at my limit and I knew I should probably look for a doctor that weekend. To my luck, during my last class, my dear scheduler called the office at my school but did not leave a message with anybody. So when I got back into the office and flopped into my chair, the cute librarian told me my company called but didn't leave a message. So I figured they were just following up with my cryptic email or something.

Around 2:10 I finally got a call from my scheduler and she sounded pretty concerned. She arranged for me to have a doctor's visit at the closest clinic three miles away down the hill. I had to cancel my speech recital coaching for that afternoon but the teachers understood my predicament after my company and me explained my recent problems. I think I made my co-workers pretty shocked too, because I did a really good job hiding my feelings and condition because I didn't want to visit a Japanese clinic (I am terrified of Japanese hospitals for some dumb reason.)

My local assistant housewife Kyoko picked me up and took me to the doctor's office. It was nice I didn't have to seek out help myself, I am really relieved my company cares and takes good care of people they think need help. Kyoko seemed pretty concerned about me too and it was a nice emotional boost to see so much concern, it actually made me feel a little better. After an hour of waiting in the reception hall at the clinic, I got to see the head doctor there. He checked my pulse, temperature, and breathing which all seemed to check out fine. Then he felt my stomach and chest for any noticeable abnormalities which turned up nothing also. So he had me pee in a cup (yay) and drew my blood for white cell count and other stuff. Since they had a lab in the office they got the results back within minutes, internally I was fine too. But the doctor was shocked to see my eyes, they were incredibly blackened and swollen like a boxer's after a 12 round slug-out match.

Ever since I was about 17 or so, the color under my eyes has darkened a tad due to allergies and the curse of my father's genes. Whenever I feel sick or exhausted, it will immediately show up on my face. When I was at the doctor's, my face was giving the biggest sign it could make that something was wrong with me. The doctor and nurse were really compassionate and concerned about my condition and took good care of me during the checkup. The doctor finally came to the conclusion that my two week's of sleep deprivation had reached a peak and my body was paying highly for it. My headaches, weird light-handedness, and fatigue were all from my insomnia. Where it came from, he couldn't figure it out but he did prescribe some medicine for me.

I ended up getting seven day's worth of Japanese sleeping pills which are incredibly effective. I decided I was done with my day around 8pm and took my first dosage after finishing an email to one of my new email friends in Japan. I literally fell asleep immediately after I pushed the send button on my phone...because when I woke up it was still in my hand. I decided to read the last few email messages on my phone when I woke up to see how groggy and out of it I was, oh man was I loopy. I garbled a few words and sounded really lovey-dovey and sappy in the email. I hope I didn't come off as if I was making a pass at her because it wasn't my intention. Either way, I slept for a solid 11 hours till I woke up at 6:30am. I feel so revived, like a new person. I won't be going out on any bike rides or excursions today because I want to continue recovering. I'm just glad it was a simple problem that could be solved by sleep. It's been a long time since I've dreamt and not tossed and turned in my sleep and it really feels great.